I would like if the Mounted Crossbows were given to all the Western European civs as they were not unique to Scandinavia and are more accurate than the CA.
The other thing is please change Hearth Troopers name to Hearth Guard if your not going to rename Huscarls as Trooper as the term is used for Cavalry and Police with the Saxon UU is neither. Preferably they would be named Huscarls with the Goth UU name changed
Also Varangians for Byzantines
Thats what I hope they are doing. It would be pretty stupid if they would give them to any of the Scandinavian civs.
That is also a must have. Honestly only the Byzantines and Varangians should get them and no one else.
To Hirdman, please! Much more pleasing to the tongue.
But Hirdman were Scandinavian not Saxon.
Maybe the could simply be called “Saxon Huskalrs”. We already have “Magyar Hussars” and “Winged Hussars” next to just “Hussar”.
I guess “Hearthweru” is also an option
can we please NOT fuck up more of the classic civs. If they are already messing up vikings, they should at least leave the rest of the european civs in peace
We don’t know if or how they will change the Vikings in this DLC. They might be unchanged, just sharing the Longships with others now.
they have already messed up Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese and Inca. I have absolutely no trust that they’ll stop there
I thought we had this discussion already. Vikings and crossbows are not more mutually exclusive than Japanese and spears. They were some of the most fervent adopters of the technology because everyone and their mother used ranged weapons as a sidearm. Others also having mounted crossbows makes sense.
Plenty of Saga examples of Varangian Guards traveling back to Skandinavia to fight. A famous example is Olav the Holy, or Olav the Stout as they actually called him, who lived in exile as a Varangian Guard for a time before trying and failing to retake the crown of Norway after the Thing had thrown him out.
Pretty sure Varangian Guard are gonna be available to Byzantines. It is literally their unit, their regiment the unit is based on. Actual Varangians didn’t have a military order called Varangian Guard, so it’s probably gonna be available to the Byzantines and Varangians, similar to Winged Hussars being shared between Poles and Lithuanians.
I can only guess the Mounted Crossbowman will be a more general regional unit, rather than specifically Scandinavian.
Hearth Troops would’ve been cooler if called Hearthwerod, as per their Anglo-Saxon name.
Maybe make the Varangian guard a team bonus unit?
Yes, but it would be like a nod to Norse Hirdman from AoM… besides, the Huskarl could also be called Housecarl…
Technically they are not classic civs, since they are from 2 HD…
Yes, like in AoE 4… I would add that the Byzantines should also have the Varangian Guard with the release of the DLC… that way they would have at least 3 UUs shared between both games: Cataphract, Dromon, and Varangian Guard… as a unique upgrade, I would make the Limitanei their Imperial pikeman upgrade…
That is a stupid comparison. Most Japanese soldiers used a Spear. Almost no Viking used a Crossbow.
Regional units are supposed to be something that is typical for a region not something that they maybe have used in some rare occasions.
A few people going back isn’t really a good bases for a regional unit. With that logic all civilisations should have access to almost all units. A game like that would be pretty boring.
depends on your definition of “classic”. they are civs from before DE, so they have no right to take them away from us. They explicitely promised that we get to play with all the civs from HD.
IIRC the singular form was “Hearthwere” (like in Assassin’s Creed). It sounds good but I still think “Hirdman” would work best, even if this was a Norse word (Arambai after all weren’t Khmer but their adversaries, Huskarls had no connection to the Goths, etc)
If they added a “classical civs” tab that allows you to play with the Age of Kings and Conquerors civs as they were back then would this make you happy?
Yeah, I’m on Team Stop Changing Classic Civs, so no mounted crossbowmen for Western European civs or Varangian guards for Byzantines for me, please and thank you. Happy to rename Hearth Troops though – they’re not even released yet.
According to the OED, it’s neither a Norse word nor a specifically Norse concept. Other, less Norse-adjacent, options include gesith and thegn.
The clam you’re making here has no historical foundation. We have overwhelming evidence of Skandinavian armies adopting crossbows. Carrying ranged weapons as a sidearm was so common that Viking battles are repeatedly described as having the initial hails of arrows blot out the sun. The shield wall was common because they all shot each other with arrows and bolts.
It depends on how you define a Viking army. If it’s just from the Viking era, then the crossbow is anachronistic given that it was only adopted at its zenith. If you extend the definition to later Christian Scandinavian armies then yeah, crossbow makes sense.
So far it looks like the architecture is from the Pagan period but the campaign follows a Christian, so who knows. Personally I’d give the Mounted Xbow to Danes but not to Varangians, to better differentiate the two civs.
The official “Viking age” split isn’t very historical. The north had Christian kings long before the Viking age “ended”, and the old ways never stopped being practiced even as Christianity became more dominant. Largely thanks to the King Sverre and others like him the Thing eventually won out against the Catholic church, preventing Skandinavia from ever becoming a traditional Christian Feudal society.